China biopharma still faces a long road to globalization

Franck Le Deu of KerZheng Ventures argues that Chinese biopharma companies are unlikely to become conventional global competitors by 2030, despite strong science, because the U.S. dominates the profit pool, taking about 53% of world prescription-medicine sales in 2025 and 74% of sales of medicines launched in 2020-24. He weighs Pfizer's Innovent Biologics collaboration worth up to $10.5 billion and China's Five-Year Plan targets, including first-in-class drugs reaching a quarter of the global total and five products exceeding $1 billion in sales by 2030, against barriers like CFIUS and geopolitics. He suggests few will succeed in the Western model, and alternative paths such as affordable innovation outside the U.S. market may define globalization instead.